Food Composition Tables and Databases & Food Matching

Technical Webinar on Food Composition Data for Nutrition. March, 2023

Agenda



  1. Review of Week 9 - 25min
  2. Overview of food matching process - 1h

BREAK - 10min

  1. Food Matching (activity) - 1h
  2. Introduction to quality assessment - 25min

Review of Week 9

Food Composition Tables and Databases (FCTs)


  1. What are they?
  2. Uses and limitations
  3. How to use them?
  1. Where to find them?
  2. Strengths and weaknesses

Food Composition Tables - what are they?

Food Composition Tables and Databases are lists of foods, their nutrient composition (i.e., proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, etc.) and other descriptive information.

Food Composition Tables – Uses & Users


Examples of application

  1. Dietary assessment of nutrient intakes
  2. Food labelling
  3. Research and Public Health
    • Establishing relationship between nutrient intakes and disease
    • Informing nutrition policies


Food Composition Tables - Potential Pitfalls


Factors influencing the accuracy of nutrient intake estimation


  1. Variability in the composition of foods
  2. Type and Quality of the underlying data
  3. Food and component description

How to use them? – How to choose FCTs


  1. Relevancy for the study/context (e.g., geographically and culturally close)


  1. FCT availability & missing values (e.g., relevant foods and nutrients are reported)


  1. Data quality and reporting (e.g., method of analysis, good metadata)

Food Matching


  1. What’s food matching?
  2. Why is important/ necessary?
  3. How to do it?
  1. Potential pitfalls

What’s food matching?

Food matching links food consumption/supply data with food composition data.

Why is important/ necessary?

To obtain (high quality) estimations of apparent nutrient intakes

Why is important/ necessary?

How to do it?

QUESTIONS?